The Stupid Little Things - Part 6/? Carl Gallagher x Reader
“Carl?” I called, snapping my fingers in front of his face “Carl c’mon!”
He’d been zoned out from studying for a good few seconds and he was starting to freak me out a little.
“Carl stop fucking staring at my face!”
That’s when he snapped out of it, blinking a couple of times before shaking his head and inhaling.
“I wasn’t staring at you,” he said and I sighed angrily so he changed his story.
“You look different that’s all” he said defensively before turning away and flicking his pen between his fingers “I haven’t seen by best friend in two years,”
“You’re not my friend,” I said quickly “Let’s get back to the questions”
I did everything but look at his face, because there was that look of harrowing sadness plastered across which I knew that if I looked at I would break. I’d try to forgive him. But I didn’t want to do that.
“How does Shakespeare present the theme of a male aggressive behaviour in Romeo and Juliet?” I asked and Carl shook his head and laughed coldly.
For a second our eyes met, and a chill ran through my whole body
“You really do hate me don’t you?” he said and I could have sworn his voice cracked.
I ignored him and pointed at a copy of the play
“I mean even in the opening scene, the servants are threatening to fight each other to the death. It hits you straight in the face like ‘boom’ aggressive male behaviour, it’s the only thing they seem to care about,”
“Y/N is this some kind of joke to you?”
“I mean the whole plays practically a big showcase of male aggressive behavior. Greed and hate and selfishness and cowardice and aggression and…”
“Is that what you really fucking think of me huh? That I’m aggressive, that I’m a coward”
He wasn’t shouting which was honestly more frightening to me. He sounded sad.
“It’s just an English question”
“Can we answer the fucking questions so I can leave and you can go back to doing whatever sketchy things you are doing these days,”
Carl scoffed and leapt up
“You don’t fucking get it do you?”
I looked at him questioningly and he continued
“I learnt the hard way, I lost everything. I fucking lost you”
“That doesn’t change anything,” I said paying no attention to him “Now can you finish this question so I can leave,”
He was right, but I wasn’t going to admit it to him. How the hell could I tell him that.
“Right. Yeah. It doesnt change a thing does it,”
He slumps back down beside me on the bed, sheets of paper and copies of textbooks forming a circle behind us.
“I’m choosing a new question,” he says and files his way through the pack until he finds one he he feels is appropriate and slams it down in front of me.
“Explain the significance of Shakespeare presenting Juliet as an innocent character despite deceitful behavior throughout the play” he reads.
“What the hell are you trying to say?”
“It’s just an English question,” he repeats back at me completely deadpan “You’re just not the precious princess people see you as. I know you too well to believe that,”
I shifted uncomfortably on top of the covers.
“You don’t know anything about me anymore,”
“Bullshit,” he replied quickly.
“In the twenty minutes you’ve been in this room you’ve chewed on your hoodie strings the whole time, wrinkled your nose every five second and you’ve not stopped tapping your foot. Something’s wrong, something’s very wrong and I know full well it has absolutely fuck all to do with me,”
Every single piece of me.
And I didn’t want him to.
Neither of us said anything for a while and then before I knew what was happening Carl reached for my hand. As soon as his skin met mine, I snatched it back from him, scowling slightly protectively. Carl just blinked a little and shook his head, taking my hand a second time and holding it with both of is.
“Just because you stopped caring doesn’t mean that I did asswipe,”
I refused to let myself smile at the old nickname and just sighed theatrically.
“I hospitalised two people today” I said after the silence got too much.
I felt him release my hand a little, but it was still engulfed in his.
“Shit Y/N! What the fuck?”
“I broke her nose, gave her a black eye. He’s got a fractured cheekbone. Nearly cost me my whole high school career,”
He just looked back at me with a look of concern.
“I’m not proud of it okay… they just… they just fucking deserved it,”
There were tears welling in my eyes and I was begging myself not to cry in front of my ex-best friend.
“Who’s they?” he said slowly, an odd malice in his voice that made him sound as though he wanted to knock ‘them’ out.
“He fucking cheated on me with Olivia. 7 months he’d been seeing her. 7 months he’d lied to me, would go to her house straight after mine I heard, straight after. I found out at lunch.”
“Shit,” Carl said in surprise.
“Yep,” I laughed sadly, “Welcome to my life,”
Carl raised a finger, as if signally that he’d be a second before flipping through the question pack until he found another card. He held it up under his chin as if he was taking a mugshot. I read it.
‘How does Shakespeare present the strength of friendship in Romeo and Juliet?’
“Carl, you know we’re not fri-”
“Seriously! Stop saying that! What do you have to gain from it! Can’t you see I’m sorry?”
“You pulled a gun on me Carl, you could have ki-”
“Nick’s going to jail,” He said.
And then he looks at me in a way that actually shatters me, that tears down the last barrier that I’d put up and makes me want to bawl crying.
Carl Gallagher looked scared.
“I just… i just can’t stop seeing that dead body in my head. It’s just there. It’s always there. I don’t wanna see that Y/N”
The tone in his voice was breaking my heart.
“I don’t wanna see that. I didn’t want that to be me. I don’t wanna hurt people, I don’t want to hurt people, so I got out”
And obviously there was nothing I could say to that.
“You know what Frank said Y/N? He said, in front of the principal and most of the kids in my grade, he told them I’d be picking up garbage on the side of the road in an orange jumpsuit. That was my future he told them.”
“But I won’t. And I just wanted to let you know, I’m truly fucking sorry.”
Again I don’t say anything, but I do stand up. I stand up and open my arms, closing my eyes and waiting for him to reciprocate..
“Trust me when I say we both need this hug right now,” I say with my eyes still closed.
The next thing I felt where two strong familiar arms wrap themselves around my waist, and a head nuzzle into the side of my neck, warm breath pressing against me skin. I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close as I felt his fingers gently rubbed my back. This is what I’d missed, I’d missed his touch, his comfort, his smell, his arms, hands. I’d missed Carl Gallagher. Two years of being stubborn and I’d left my best friend to fend for himself when he needed me the most. Despite the heaviness in my stomach, it fluttered at the feeling of his body pressed against mine, as if he embodied everything that was simple and familiar. The hug was a simple enough gesture - but it was the start of something else. I knew then, whether my brain liked it or not, that he was forgiven.
“I’m sorry Y/N,” He whispered into my neck
“I’m sorry Carl,” I whispered back and he pulled away away a little so that he could look me in the eye.
“Why?” he asked softly, his eyes as wide and vulnerable as a small child’s.
“You’re nothing like Frank. I shouldn’t have said that, you know, that night,”
Carl buried his head further into my hair
“How about we just forget that night ever happened?” Carl asked hopefully.
“Deal” he said, but he didn’t let go.
“I’ve missed you, you know. No matter what I’ve said before. I have.”
Carl smirked a little and I could see his usual mischievous glow return to his cheeks.
“That’s a good job, with all of this tutoring shit it looks like you’ll be spending half your life with me”
“Glad to see your back in the room Gallagher,”
We pulled apart and he smirked even wider; I rolled my eyes checking my phone for the time.
“Shit! No way is it this time already!” I said to myself “Carl I’ve got to go… I’ve got to…”
“Chill,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders “Go,”
“But we’ve hardly covered anything,”
“I’ll be fine, I’ll answer it myself and let you know if I need any help,”
I smiled warmly, if not a little skeptically, and tried to laugh a little.
“I guess I’ll have to unblock you then,” I said as I walked towards the bedroom door.
“You only blocked me? I presumed you’d deleted my fucking number.”
He laughed a little and he lingered in the door frame before I left
“Friends?” he asked, almost nervously.
“Friends,” I agreed, kissing his cheek gently before I waltzed back out of his bedroom, leaving him stood frozen to the spot
“Good job asswipe,” he called eventually, when I was halfway down the stairs “because you ain’t fucking getting rid of me that easily this time”
